Taking a Break
by cmr2014
Summary: A cool night. Conversation. Connection. Sometimes you need a break from the load, and sometimes you catch a break when you least expect it.


DISCLAIMER: Trigun and its characters belong to Yasuhiro Nightow.

 **Taking A Break**

Vash the Stampede sat in a folding chair at his unconscious brother's bedside in the cell.

It wasn't really a cell, but the storage cellar was small enough to qualify as one, even with everything moved out of it.

Vash didn't feel too bad about keeping Knives underground. The space was made out of sand brick, and cooler than above the surface. Fresh air came in from several small ventilation shafts that were built-in, too small to be climbed through; all Vash had had to do was remove the grating, taking away any possible weapons. The bed was one solid metal frame, nothing to disassemble and too heavy and awkward to wield as a weapon. Aside from the chair Vash sat on, which he would be taking with him, there were no other objects down here.

It was a very spartan arrangement, but Vash wanted to develop good habits concerning the treatment of Knives now, when he had a good-sized margin of error. His brother wouldn't be unconscious forever, and that margin of error was going to drop to almost nil when he came out of it. Although there was no telling when that would be.

Half-dead himself when he had more stumbled than staggered into town with Knives on his shoulders, Vash's steps had taken him directly to medical treatment. None for himself, he insisted, water and food and rest was all he needed, but he wanted Knives evaluated. Both to determine his brother's condition, and to surreptitiously observe the examinations so he could confirm he had indeed disabled the biological circuitry that allowed Knives to access his offensive plant capabilities without otherwise permanently damaging him.

Vash had gotten just a little bit of rest and rehydration before re-establishing contact with Meryl Stryfe and Milly Thompson, both most anxious to see him. Looking back, he could see where some in his shoes would have made seeing them more important than getting a genocidal killer checked out. He could see where some would have made a point of getting more rest, or exchanging heartfelt pleasantries.

But he couldn't do any of that yet.

Vash had made the decision to not just spare Knives, but to save him. To put Knives off the path he had set upon so long ago.

That decision carried a lot of risk with it. He had to make sure all of that risk was minimized, and do it before Knives woke up, which the doctor said could be never or could be a year from now or could be in a few minutes, impossible to say.

So there had been no time for catching up. No time for small talk. No time for any but the minimum amount of rest necessary. He'd asked the insurance girls to acquire a place for him, with a securable room. That had turned out well enough, Meryl automatically offering a place. It was her place, true (technically the town's place, since it had belonged to a recently passed member of the local council and she was paying rent, but apparently she'd lived here long enough since he'd left for most to consider it her place), but it housed her and Milly and with some squeezing could fit him too, and most important it had this cellar to place Knives.

He'd tossed his gear by the door upon entry and set about checking out the cellar, then getting the right kind of bed and mattress and moving them down. Meryl had kindly contributed a pillow and sheets. After that, Vash fetched Knives and moved him down here, doing so with no help and as little fuss as possible. The time would come when the town's awareness of Knives was unavoidable, but until then the less people knew the better. Vash didn't want any questions or probing curiosity until he had his brother socialized, and that was a long way off.

And now he sat, watching his brother, trying to anticipate if anything else was needed.

Restraints. Not likely now, but certainly they would have to be ready when Knives woke up. Fixed restraints, something fixed to the wall. Maybe reinforce a section of wall with something better than just sand brick, then fix a baseplate. Or maybe to the floor. Some kind of tether – chains were strong, but would they make too much noise and draw proverbial cats for curiosity to kill? Could Knives be trusted with regular stuff like flexicuffs, or would full-on manacles be required?

How to best strike the balance? Things needed to be kept quiet, but Vash couldn't afford to sacrifice the strength of the restraints, either – quiet couldn't be such a priority that it was inadvertently made easy for Knives to escape.

Then, too, too much restraint could hinder Vash's efforts to get Knives to trust him. If you want to make a man bite you, chain him up like an animal.

Vash couldn't afford to sacrifice security, that much was sure. But maybe he could make it more pleasant down here somehow. Paint? Scented candles?

A sigh escaped; if he kept thinking about this much longer, he'd wind up chasing his tail. Might even wind up thinking he _had_ a tail to chase.

The exhausted man had to accept he'd done everything he could for the time being. Everything to do with Knives had taken priority, excepting that small bit of what amounted to waking sleep. Now it was time to just let it be.

"I need a break," Vash told the unconscious Knives. "Stay out of trouble."

He headed upstairs, grabbing a bottle out of the kitchen on his way out to the small front deck. The label said hard cider; not the beer he had hoped for, but it was cool nonetheless. It would do, despite having come from the house's low-energy cooler instead of the more energy-intensive refrigerators most people on Gunsmoke had. This little village had only one plant, compared to the multiple plants held by bigger towns, and its inhabitants were willing to forego the ability to chill drinks and food for convenience, among other abilities, in order to keep from exhausting their power source. Small freezers and coolers well (it could even be argued far) above freezing temperature were the norm here, accompanied by other such necessary deprivations.

He went outside, the cool night air most welcome, and set his folding chair close to the deck rail, popping the bottle and taking a brief whiff of the apple scent, eyes shut. Wanted to kick his feet up, but his bones were too damn tired. He sat there, willing the breeze to be absorbed by his body and alleviate his hot fatigue.

A scraping sound. Soft soles quietly thudding as a chair was dragged next to him.

"Come out for the show?" Meryl asked.

Holding the bottle to his side, his head lolled in her direction, eyes slowly opening to truly take her in for the first time since being back. He'd been far too busy to really stop and see her before; now, even in just the light from the moons and stars, he was able to take a good look.

A casual observer would likely not notice any change. Her body seemed mostly the same. But her features were just a touch leaner, thinner than when he left. The skin around her eyes, while not immediately different, still reminded him of people who spent more time working than sleeping; there was the faintest outline of circles there, that's what it was. Her nose, not quite sunburned, was still redder than the rest of her face. These small changes were likely the result of the hard existence life this far out mandated, working harder and longer than elsewhere with less fuel. They would become more obvious, and more numerous, if she stayed out here with him – which seemed like a smart bet, the way she had always insisted it was her job to stay on his tail.

Her eyes, though – they had changed, too, but were not hard, the way he might have expected from these other changes. On a world such as Gunsmoke, the weak and soft did not tend to last long, but frontier places such as this little village would make even the stoutest of December citizens question their toughness. Life out here could require so much for survival that there would up being little left in a person for other concerns – such as the survival of strangers, in some cases. You had no right expecting help this far out, you had to prove you were capable of helping yourself first; a place like this had limited resources and couldn't afford to waste them. If you can't be counted _on_ , you can't be counted _in_.

But Meryl's eyes did not carry hardness. What was surprising was they lacked the annoyance he was used to seeing in them. Vash knew Meryl Stryfe to be a good person, but she seemed to expect things and people to be a certain way and got annoyed when they weren't.

Maybe that was still in her, but what he was seeing right now was a gentleness that had rarely been there before. That was surprising. And oddly pleasing, to think that perhaps demanding Meryl had taken it down a notch or two; many times in the time he had known her, he'd found himself thinking that the little good turns she did for others showed someone underneath all the bitchiness that he wouldn't mind getting to know.

Could it be that a frontier life was proving to actually be good for Meryl?

Her hand tapped him on the shoulder, just a light push. "Well?"

His attention re-focused. "Hmm?"

"I asked if you came out here to watch the show."

"Oh." He lifted the bottle of hard cider to his mouth, taking an experimental swallow. It was nice, sweet, hardly any alcoholic taste to it. Very good; he'd have to add this to the list of drinks to ask for in saloons. "What show?"

Either tired of standing or seeking to be more level with him, Meryl took a seat in her chair, next to his. Vash could feel the day's leftover warmth emanating from her. Though he had come out here to cool down, it actually felt like a nice counterbalance to the night coolness that would become a slight chill not too far from now.

"The fireworks," she explained. "I've been told the people here welcome in the new year with fireworks."

Vash's free hand lightly smacked against his forehead in realization. "New year's eve! I've been so caught up I haven't kept track of the days; I'm sorry, I don't have a present for you."

Meryl shrugged, catching him off guard with her acceptance of things. "It's ok. I think fireworks are cheaper than getting well-wish presents to start off the new year, so these people go that route. So you're actually in tune with the local custom." Her small smile also caught him off guard.

"Not quite. No fireworks for my part, either. Even if I'd known, I'm not that into them."

Her smile grew. "Good. Neither am I."

He took another drink, wiping the bottle's mouth and offering it to her. A shake of her head told him no thanks.

"Why don't you like them?"

Meryl's smile faded. "You'd think I'm silly if I told you."

"So what if I do? You've never cared what I think."

Her head tilted, mouth pursed, about to say something. Then she paused. "Well…they make me twitchy."

Vash was pretty sure that wasn't what had run through her head, but he was interested enough in the current line of conversation to let it slide. "Kind of jumpy? Like your body thinks there's a gunfight happening?"

She looked up at him, blinking. "Yeah."

"Same here."

Blink blink. "You? You're kidding."

He answered her surprised blinks with a headshake. "Not a bit."

"I'd never know."

"I react to backfires and fireworks and anything that sounds remotely like gunfire just the same as you and probably most others whose lives depend on quick responses. I just process it faster, because I've been around long enough to develop a quicker OODA loop than most."

"A what?"

"OODA. Observe-Orient-Decide-Act. It's the brain's automatic response to a stimulus. Like you see a ball thrown at you from the corner of your eye, what do you do? Your brain picks up the movement, identifies it as an incoming ball, makes a decision and runs with it. Maybe you duck, maybe you catch it, maybe you flinch. Or someone makes like they're going to hit you – brain sees movement, identifies it as an incoming punch, makes a decision and runs with it. Depending on your programming, you might flinch, you might react with some kind of deflection, you might counter-punch." After so many words, he couldn't help but yawning.

"Programming?"

"Didn't they teach you this stuff in Insurance Academy?' Vash teased. "You might not think so, but your brain has been programmed with the training you've gone through and the experiences you've had. That's what the installation of habits is, for example, programming yourself so you do something without having to consciously think about doing it. You set the clock to wake you up at a certain time, after long enough goes by of getting up at that time you don't need the clock, you just wake up at that time. Sight-acquire-fire is a form of programming.

"Somebody not trained in stimulus responses, their brain still has default programming. Something comes at you, you flinch. After you train and it takes, you've re-programmed your brain to a different response. Remember that boxer at that costume party back in Inepril City?"

"Oh, yeah." Meryl grinned with recollection. "His friend tried to scare him by popping out of a trash can, and his reflex response was a punch that knocked his friend out cold."

"Exactly." Another yawn, followed by a roll of his head to work out a crick in his neck as he continued. "Observe – motion. Orient – someone popping out of a trash can equals surprise attack. Decide – this guy had re-programmed himself to respond to a perceived attack with an attack of his own, rather than flinching. Act – having decided on attack, his brain triggered a punch that knocked his friend out. Everyone's got the same OODA process. I've just had enough experience that mine works quicker, so my initial reactions to loud but harmless noises are so fast you don't see them. But they're still there."

"So you're human like the rest of us."

Vash raised his bottle in a good-humored toast. "Close enough. What brings you out here if you don't like fireworks?"

"Just wanted to check on you. You haven't taken any breaks until now. Are you good?"

"I'm fine."

"Yes," she pressed, "but are you good?"

Vash blinked and clenched his mouth to stifle a third yawn. "Five by five, chief. Good To Go is my name, ask me again and I'll tell you the same."

Meryl rolled her eyes. "Bad rhyming to boot. All right, fine. I'll play it your way."

"There's no playing." Voice was suddenly hard, without his meaning it to be.

She looked at him curiously. "What do you mean?"

"There's no room for playing. No room for down time. I don't know how much time I've got to get this right, I have to assume every second counts, take everything into account."

"You're talking about him, aren't you?"

Vash looked at her levelly. "You know the three worst words known to man? 'I fucked up.' I get anything wrong on this, I won't get a chance to even say those words. I give him even the slightest chance to get free, he'll make me pay for it. But at the same time, if I take it too far, he'll see himself as a prisoner and me as his jailer, and that'll only make him dig his heels in deeper. I've got to find the middle on a path barely wide enough for one step. So until I've got everything covered, until I've accounted for stuff I haven't even thought of yet, I can't afford to be anything _but_ five by five, ok?"

His stare challenged her return gaze, neither looking away. Until he felt the warmth from her hand covering his, blocking it from feeling the slowly dropping temperature. Then his stern expression softened, and the tension began to ease away.

"You should know that I hate him."

"Why?" Vash asked. Voice was gentler now, the steel out of it.

"Because he's done nothing but hurt you. You know everyone blames you for July, and he lets them. Everything he's done, he lets you take the blame for it. People hate you, and he lets them. So I hate him." Her voice was soft, sincere. Confessional. Things it had never been to Vash before.

There was a whistle a little way away, then a _POP_ as a lone firework burst into a colorful flower. Meryl cringed for a moment, then relaxed as Vash put his arm around her.

"You should go in now," he said.

Felt her head shake no against him. "There's still a little while longer before it gets bad."

For some reason unknown to him, he rested his head against hers. They were quiet together for several moments. He sipped at his cider.

"You shouldn't hate him," he said at last.

"Why not?

"For the same reason I brought him back."

Meryl turned her head to look at him. "Why _did_ you spare his life?"

"To save him. Not just his life. His soul."

"Why?"

"Why do you want to know so bad?"

Her eyes shone in the moonlight. "It's important to me. Because it's important to you."

Vash blinked in surprise, but brushed away the comments that came to mind, the teasing and exploration of what lay behind her words. Decided that her honesty deserved his own in return, everything else could wait.

"We were close once. Not for a long time now, but once. Maybe you think him a monster; at times I have, too. But monsters are made, not born. If you'd lived it, you would understand better. There's no way I can put it that can really get it across. But he didn't choose his path out of malice. He chose it because he thought it was right.

"I need to show him there's a better path. And I need you to not hate him. Because he's my brother, Meryl." He could spend a thousand years trying to explain it, but it all boiled down to the simple fact that they would always be brothers, a tie that no amount of hate could cut.

Her response was so quiet he couldn't hear it. "What?"

"I said ok," she repeated. "On one condition."

"What's that?"

Her stare was the challenging one now. "Let me help you."

His headshake was firm. "I can't –"

"You can," she cut him off. "You're going to run yourself into the ground the way you've been going, and how can you do any good then? Look, I'm not asking to be around him, but please – let me help carry your load."

Well, by damn. Her desire was so earnest, to help when she didn't have to – her time here had brought into full view something she'd only allowed to be glimpsed on previous occasions. Vash liked what he saw.

"All right," he said. "We'll work out the details later, but all right."

Meryl nodded once. There was no smirk of triumph, just a resolute acceptance of what she had let herself in for.

More fireworks sounded, and he felt her tense. His arm around her tightened firmly, shielding her with his presence. The celebration began to start for real, multiple colors and sounds exploding in the sky.

"I should get you in."

"It's all right," Meryl said. "I don't mind staying out. I should be waiting when Milly gets off-shift."

"You sure about that?"

"Yeah. Don't worry about the noise." She rested against him. "I can take it, as long as I'm with you."

He raised his bottle, now nearly empty. "Welcome in, new year. Welcome in, new start."

"Might not be such a good thing," Meryl pointed out. "You're taking on a lot. Things can always get worse."

Vash gazed at the woman resting in his one-armed embrace, her face bathed in shifting colors under the glow of a pyrotechnic skyscape. He rested his head against hers again. "They can always get better, too."


End file.
